Sailingmaster’s Comments

I grew up in a small town in Indiana, this is just one of an endless set of examples of how politics work in Indiana.
Think of every single bad stereotype of small town backroom good-ol'-boy politics that's been portrayed in movies and television for the last 60 years. That's the standard for every municipality in Indiana outside Indianapolis or the region around Gary. Several years ago, while under oath in court, the mayor of my hometown admitted on the stand that he'd taken bribes when he was sheriff of the county. And yes, he was reelected mayor the following year.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the purpose behind the lawsuit was to ensure that Toho wasn't seen as being connected to Comcast. I know if I was an executive at Toho, I'd be screaming bloody murder at legal to stop Comcast.

Comcast has abysmal customer service and the ethics of a 14 year old crack whore. I don't blame Toho in the slightest.

Another thing to keep in mind for hotels is their primary clientele. Hotels which cater to corporate customers with expense accounts will be the last to drop paid wifi, since the majority of those customers don't see it as a burden.

Crazy as it sounds, I could see Disney being one of the first big resorts to do free wifi.

how much bandwidth they're using. Makes it easier to charge you more money, and lets be real specific here.

Comcast is not interested in providing a service. What Comcast wants is as much money as they can squeeze out of a customer, even if it will cost them that customer's business.

I know, that doesn't make any sense. However, there are people who do not have a choice. Outside major metropolitan areas, most small towns have only one choice for cable. DSL may or may not be available. Worse off, in some major cities, collusive agreements between cable providers prevent actual competition between said providers except in areas of new home & commercial construction. Even then, in some areas it's already been divided up as to who gets what.

At any rate, with what amounts to a hostage market, it should be no surprise that Comcast treats its customers shoddily and fights municipal ISPs tooth and nail.

It really is. No one believes the RIAA's lies about trying to defend the artists. They are there for the record companies and themselves. No artist sees a dime from their efforts.

ASCAP is worse. They are "supposedly" there for the artists themselves. Coloring themselves in the reflected light of the hatred aimed at the RIAA, they are making themselves increasingly repugnant.

I remember reading something about a case a few years ago about a garage that was sued for a Public Performance due to a mechanic in the garage having a radio turned up where it could be heard in the garage's waiting room.

Rampant idiocy is going to be the norm until IP law is completely overhauled.

You know from the Q&A portion that there are a myriad of subjects that Discovery simply won't let them do. Don't think for a moment that Discovery wouldn't shut this topic down in a heartbeat in order to protect advertisers.

The question I'd like to see answered about this particular instance of copyright stupidity, is whether or not the actual membership of ASCAP is in favor of this, or if it's some ASCAP executive's idea of how to use RIAA tactics to make more money?

Broadcast television has been free and supported by advertising for 60 years. Nice to know that all that time they were being anti-American, anti-Consumer and anti-Media employees.

Edward R. Murrow would have a field day ripping apart these corporate shills' agenda driven faux analyses. Unfortunately, there is no one today in the media with the stones, objectivity and reputation of Ed Murrow.

Thanks mostly to lobbying by companies like Disney, Patent, Copyright and Trademark laws have become far too complex. Not to mention the effects of a certain Texas court system to help muddy the waters further.

From a layman's perspective though (at least this layman), to quote Clint Eastwood: "it's a clusterfuck." Best description that I can think of to describe the entire mess.

I know that many of the articles I read concerning the use of IP laws make me angry. In many instances it amounts to nothing more than legalized extortion.